Sunny skies forecast for North Bay, followed by atmospheric river

North Bay residents can look forward to sunny skies and mild temperatures over the weekend and most of next week - until another atmospheric river hits Friday or Saturday.

“It looks like this’ll be a great weekend. Dry all the way Saturday through Sunday,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Scott Rowe. “Looks like towards the end of next week, things could get kind of interesting.”

Late Monday or early Tuesday, there may be scattered showers in the region, Rowe said, but the rain shouldn’t be too heavy.

“It’s not going to be a complete washout by any means,” he said.

The atmospheric river coming at the end of the week will bring “moderate to locally heavy rainfall” to the North Bay, Rowe said.

Atmospheric rivers are “like rivers in the sky” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website. They can carry an amount of water vapor “roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River.”

The already soaked North Bay is coming off a week of rain, with 2.42 inches falling on Santa Rosa since Monday, according to meteorologist Duane Dykema with the Weather Service. The much wetter Venado, in the hills northwest of Healdsburg, saw 4.80 inches over the same period.

Santa Rosa has received 42.44 inches of rain since Oct. 1, more than twice the total from this time last year and 11 inches above the city’s annual average.

The area’s major reservoirs remained at their brim, with Lake Sonoma at 104.98 percent of capacity, and Lake Mendocino at 105.24 percent.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Beale at 707-521-5205 or andrew.beale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @iambeale.